


Root of the Stars

by fireprooflove



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, ronan really wants to kiss adams freckles!!, they just chill and makeout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 04:37:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13803546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireprooflove/pseuds/fireprooflove
Summary: In Ronan’s eyes, Adam is sunlight pouring through open slits in blinds, the ethereal glow of sunlight in the rain. In Adam’s eyes, Ronan is the howl of a wolf past midnight, a blazing fire reflecting anger in ones eye's.





	Root of the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> whoops sorry if this sucks

The soft Virginia breeze carried humidity into his room. An occasional screech in the distance broke the constant silence of a late night. Ronan’s droopy eyelids were no battle against his restless soul.  
An internal war raged, similar to every night for the past years. A side won, he wasn’t sure which, not that it really mattered anyway. He already knew what was destined for a night like that. With closed eyes he reached for his sleek black keys to match his sleek black car. They rested firmly against his clammy palm, a constant solidity in his otherwise toppling life.  
Stumbling past an empty cage and piles of clothing that all looked the same, he grasped the metal doorknob, and creaked open the door. 

Gansey was sleeping, with books at his side and thin silver glasses placed high on the bridge of his nose. He looked peaceful, yet restless. Patient, yet anxious.  
Ronan was sure to slip out the door instead of slamming it like he typically would.  
His heavy boots were replaced with Gansey’s “indoor shoes”, as he would call them. For where Ronan was going, there wasn’t a need for his tough outer shell.  
Ronan quite liked the motion of twisting a key and hearing an engine roar. It felt mechanical, empowering, like the whole world was there, in front of him to be conquered and tread on. Even at two a.m. his car thrummed with life and energy, with heavy beats bouncing off the vibrating walls and hearty skids.  
At some point his mind had wandered off, but his hands and feet recalled the directions he’d travelled so many times before. The car effortlessly pulled into the empty parking lot, and halted to a stop far from the fluorescent lights. Amongst the darkness, Adam sat anticipating Ronan’s arrival.  
A warm knit blanket Blue had made for him slung around his shoulders, and worn ragged clothing engulfed his body. Like this, Ronan thought, Adam’s true untouched state, he looked all the more beautiful. How badly Ronan wished to run his fingers through the waves of honey brown hair blessing Adam’s head. How much Ronan wanted to kiss the freckles that dotted Adam’s face, the ones that had developed when he stayed in the sun too long.

Adam was a star, far, far away, too far for Ronan to ever reach. 

Adam’s relaxed stance tensed slightly as he spoke.  
“Lynch,” his honey voice was laced with shards and hung in the air.

“Parrish,” Ronan’s voice echoed through the parking lot like thunder lighting up the world. 

They didn’t talk about Ronan’s insomnia, or why he’d chosen to come to Adam instead of the barns. They didn’t talk about why Adam was awake when he was obviously exhausted from the day’s work. It was an unspoken rule between the pair. An inevitable truth that neither were willing to talk about. 

Ronan leaned against the car’s unmarked hood, patiently waiting for Adam to join him. Adam hefted his body off the cement stairs and took a few long strides until he stood beside Ronan. His sturdy body heavily contrasted with Ronan’s lean yet muscular build. 

The moon peeked through dark grey clouds, flooding the parking lot with a silver glow. Ronan and Adam opted to silently stare at the endless sea of dark blues and blacks above them. 

They did this sometimes, when Ronan couldn’t sleep or Adam didn’t want to, when they simply had too much adrenaline pumping through their veins to stay still. They sat together in silence, because it was enough. It was enough for Ronan to know Adam was there, next to him, alive and breathing.  
________________

Ronan’s sitting impatiently sitting in his car with his fingers tapping against the steering wheel. He’s waiting for Adam’s hours long shift to end. Just as he considered driving away (who is he kidding, he would wait years for Adam), Adam opened the passenger seat door and slips into the leather seat. The intoxicating smell of gasoline that Ronan’s grown so used to carries along with Adam. 

Adam sends a lazy grin his way. 

“I could have called you when I was done, you didn't have to wait here.”

“Whatever Parrish, just don't get any grease on my leather.”

Adam’s always been insecure about his life compared to the other Aglionby boys. He depends on his job, he puts his blood, sweat, and tears into everything he does. Meanwhile, most of the students there think of jobs as pastime activities; they have everything in life handed to them on a silver platter. Adam is careful to do his best to wash away the lingering smell of gasoline at the end of each day. He's almost positive everyone around him can “smell the poorness” practically radiating off his body. Ronan understands this, better than anyone has before. Maybe that's why Adam feels more comfortable around Ronan, like he can be the flawed, raw edged Adam. 

Ronan drives, fast enough to forget Adams sitting next to him. To forget that the object of his dreams, his nightmares, is so so close. 

________________

Ronan has woken up far too many times to count with thoughts of only one boy on his mind. With thoughts of full pink lips and golden tanned skin. With feelings of something that can only be described as lust. 

In turn, Adam has fallen asleep far too many times to count with thoughts of a certain smirk and tattoos sketching themselves out in his mind. 

________________

Ronan and Adam’s late night meetings had begun a few weeks after Aurora had died. At the time, Ronan’s insomnia had become unbearable. His dark circles had turned permanent and he stayed locked up in his room for hours on end doing god knows what.  
________________

The bright streetlight across from St. Agnes Church reflected ghostly white into Adam Parrish's tiny apartment, if it could even be called that. A small bookshelf and desk were enough to fit the contents of Adam’s life, along with piles of clothes strewn across the damaged floors. Staying up late studying after several long hours at whichever job Adam was working that day had become procedure in his routinely boring life. His exhausting lifestyle required at least three hours of sleep a night, though times he often went without any at all, in which case he would fall asleep studying during lunch.  
In other words, when Adam managed to make time for sleep, he highly valued it. Tonight however, more than ever, he desperately needed to sneak in as many hours as possible; he’d spend the entirety of the night before doing a project. Thoughts raced through Adam’s head at the speed of light, including Latin conjugations and the stress of his soon-to-be due bills. After a few minutes of laying under the thin white sheet his mind slowed down and he began drifting off.  
The sound of glass shattering against asphalt broke his trance and once again, he was wide awake. Betraying his body and mind’s pleads to ignore the sound, he slipped out of bed. The small window next to the bed overlooked the expansive, almost empty parking lot. Amongst the darkness was the one and only Ronan Lynch, lazily sat on the roof of his sleek BMW, beer bottle in hand and shredded jeans revealing slivers of milky skin.  
Adam was tempted to go down and sit alongside him. After a few moments of staring at the shark-like young man, Adam once again crawled onto the lumpy mattress. And again he drifted off, just to be woken up to the unmistakable sound of a bird making hungry noises. God, how badly Adam just wanted to sleep and never wake up again.  
Adam’s window revealed that in the 10 some minutes that had passed since he’d last looked, Ronan had yet to move from his strangely handsome pose. Adam and Ronan had a strange relationship. Friends was not the right word. Most of the time they argued, but Adam felt closer to Ronan than anyone he’d met before. Adam was usually just infuriated at the reality that no matter how hard he studied, he would never be as good as Ronan in Latin.  
The only reason the pair even associated with each other at first was Gansey. Gansey was everything Adam ever hoped to be: rich, handsome, charming, social. Adam waited and watched Ronan’s blue eyes shining in the surrounding black hole. After debating the pros and cons for a few minutes, he finally decided to wrap himself up in his thick blanket and head downstairs to Ronan’s car.  
The creaky wood stairs shifted under his heavy feet. Henrietta rarely got very cold. However, the night winds seeped through Adams knit blanket causing his body to shiver uncontrollably. He made his away across the parking lot until he was standing inches away from Ronan’s still body.  
If he’d noticed Adams slow approach, he’d yet to mention anything of it. From up close, it was easy to see how unfairly handsome Ronan really was. His angular features looked dangerous matched with the buzzcut meant to cover his unkempt curls. Adam sat down a safe distance away from Ronan, his attention away from the man next to him, and to the glowing stars in the sky. The only upside to living in the middle of nowhere was the still, calming nights of stargazing and basking in the moonlight. 

“Parrish,” Ronan acknowledged, voice sounding thick and scratchy. 

“Lynch,” Adam responded just as calmly, spreading the blanket over Ronan’s body. 

As much as Adam did “hate”Ronan and his stupidly long eyelashes, Gansey would absolutely murder him if Ronan got sick. Adam fell asleep with Ronan’s discarded Aglionby sweater bunched under his head and the intoxicating smell of Ronan.  
Ronan did not sleep that night.  
________________

When Ronan was suffering from insomnia, he ached for the feeling of leather under his hands and heady smell of gasoline wafting through the air. Racing through long empty streets surrounded by forest cleared his mind of tan freckles and thin bony fingers. He never focused on where he was going, it was muscle memory, often leading him to the barns or Adam Parrish’s apartment. And sometimes, when Ronan was drunk enough, he'd lay in Cabeswater dreaming about Adams fingers trailing all the curves and edges of Ronan’s dark ink. 

He would break every speed limit and run every red light to see Adam. He arrives in a record time of four minutes, to find Adam waiting in the parking lot with a sheepish look on his face. His hands hastily stuffed in his ripped pockets and worn shirt loosely hanging off the frame of his body. 

“Barns?” Adam asks, though it's really barely a question.

Instead of responding Ronan switches the car’s gear and speeds into the night, letting the darkness engulf his car. 

The car ride there is long enough that Adam finds his mind wandering from Ronan’s absurd appearance at three in the morning to the Latin conjugates he should definitely be studying at the moment. He watches the distantly familiar trees pass by as the forests become increasingly thicker, as the houses get further and further apart, and the moon shines brighter and brighter. 

Eventually they arrive at the cast iron gates Ronan remembers from his childhood. They swing open to reveal acres upon acres of lush landscapes. A house sits somewhere amongst it all, a comfortable abode with a few touches of luxury. The house, Adam finds, is littered with dream objects, from simplistic things that complete bizarre tasks, to obsolete insanity. It’s all very... Ronan. 

Ronan offers to make herbal tea while Adam sits on the swinging chairs out on the porch. His feet scuff the ground as he propels himself back and forth, with every push the swing groans under him. He can only assume its due to the rusting handles or rotting legs. Ronan comes back with two mismatched mugs in hand. One has a photo of the Lynch family from several years ago printed under the name of an amusement park, while the other appears to have several four leaf clovers proudly displayed. Ronan hands Adam the one with the family photo, which Adam stares at for a few moments. More specifically, he stares at the image of young Ronan. Ronan with full cheeks, a head full of wild curls, and a blissful expression splayed across his face, one that Adam wishes he could see on his Ronan more often. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes before Adam finally speaks

“What was it like? Having a family that loved you unconditionally?”

Ronan wasn’t quite sure what to say, he had blocked out the memories of being happy for a long time. 

“I don’t remember. After everything that happened I spent a long time suppressing what I felt, the sadness and the guilt.” 

Adam responds to his answer with silence, he thinks about what it must have been like. To have everything you’ve cared for, loved, taken from you and ripped to shreds. Adam never had anyone who loved him, Ronan did. Maybe another reason why Adam felt so comfortable around Ronan was because they were so similar in so many ways. Though Ronan had grown up in ways similar to Gansey or Blue, though Ronan had his brothers, he was still isolated at times. He didn’t have people to go to for reassurance like Blue did, he didn’t have a home to visit that was filled with joy and laughter, like Gansey did. 

Ronan jerks Adam out of his thoughts by opening his legs a little wider, just so their knees are pressed up against each other. Suddenly, Adam realizes the close proximity of the pair, if he turned his head their lips would practically be touching. When he does actually muster up enough courage to turn his head he finds Ronan already staring at him, with intense crystal blue eyes and a thin frown. 

And all too soon for Adam to really realize what he’s done, he leans forward and presses his lips against Ronan’s.

Kissing Adam is driving down an open road, windows down and music blaring, it was a fresh breath of cool air after suffocating. It was everything Ronan had ever felt at once. It was laughter, and hope, and frustration, and anger. 

Kissing Ronan was sinking into silk sheets after a long exhausting day. It was the sun rising after darkness for years. 

Ronan's body tenses up against Adam with astonishment clear in his head, but eventually he relaxes into it and finds himself slowly molding his lips to fit Adam’s and gently kissing back. Adam can taste sugar on Ronan’s lips and a hint of whatever else was in the tea. 

When the two eventually part, Adam is practically on top of Ronan, with his legs straddled around the man's waist. Roman thinks he’ll never get tired of Adam’s lips on his. 

At some point they end up in Ronan’s childhood bedroom, fumbling with each other’s clothes. They fall asleep with tangled limbs and soiled bed sheets. 

When Ronan wakes up he finds Adam’s arms draped over his body and a single red tulip from his dreams clenched in his fist.

**Author's Note:**

> if you have any feedback/recommendations/corrections, please leave a comment!! also if you didn't know a red tulip symbolizes like undying/true love so


End file.
